


locked out of heaven

by beautify



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tennis, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18793531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautify/pseuds/beautify
Summary: Victor helps Yuuri plan his wedding, sort of.





	locked out of heaven

**Author's Note:**

> i've lifted a [scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhBcELzXP1I) from the royal tenenbaums here that i really love, but you don't need to have watched the movie, or even the scene! the tennis is mostly irrelevant.

“That’s seventy-two unforced errors for Victor Nikiforov. He’s playing the worst tennis of his life. What’s he feeling right now, Tex Hayward?”

“I don’t know, Jim, there’s obviously something wrong with him. He’s taken off his shoes and one of his socks and … actually I think he’s crying.”

“I think you’re right — who’s he looking at in the friends box, Tex?”

“That’s Yuuri Katsuki and his new fiancé, who got engaged last night.”

 

…

 

“…He’s sitting down.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Neither have I. Strange day out here in Windswept Fields.”

 

 

 

It was not the worst tennis Victor had ever played.

The worst tennis Victor had ever played had probably been at last year’s French Open, near the end of a match that had stretched, somewhat inexplicably, to nine hours. His throat had felt like one big puncture, and he had wheezed, and grunted, and gasped for breath, and wondered — really, really wondered — what the point of it all was. Why he even bothered.

Certainly at that point in his career he hadn’t needed the prize money. He hadn’t cared about winning. He hadn’t even known his opponent’s name. Every time the commentators mentioned him, it’d taken Victor a moment or two to realize who they were talking about. Because his brain had melted out of his ears.

But that was the thing. At a certain point it was no longer about bothering. A man who had walked halfway through the desert would hardly give up and turn around at that point. All he could do was trudge nobly on, saying nothing, sweat dripping from his brow, his bleary eyes set on a mirage in the impossible distance. And at night, dream about the ocean, about meeting her.

Now, here, on a warm summer’s day in some nowhere town in middle America, he wasn’t even having a particularly bad time. He wasn’t gasping for breath. The sun warmed his face and there was wind in his hair. He had that peaceful, easy feeling one did get after crying in front of thousands of very uncomfortable strangers. And he was content with that.

His sponsors were not. Yakov was having a conniption in the stands. His mother, who would’ve been watching him on TV, was by now probably on the phone with her therapist, demanding to know where she had gone wrong, if this was all down to some superficial road bump in Victor’s childhood, if he had some kind of personality disorder, whether or not it was her fault.

Yuuri just looked lost. When Victor waved at him he looked away, and began fanning himself. His fiancé murmured something to him and Yuuri fanned himself faster.

Why bring him out here when he’s dressed like that, Victor wondered. It was thirty degrees out, and cloudless, and stunning, the air so heavy it felt like a blanket. But Yuuri was all bundled up, and hadn’t even taken his coat off.

A ball bounced onto Victor’s side of the court while he was lounging. His opponent had evidently grown sick of him. Victor ignored him still. Eventually they would drag him off the court. But for now he would enjoy the last hot day of the year, and the look on Yakov’s face when he took off his other sock.

 

 

 

It was on the front cover of every magazine: Victor Nikiforov, twenty-eight years old, the five-time Wimbledon champion — sitting on the grass, missing one sock, staring dazedly into the stands like a child.

“Were you drunk? What happened out there? Tell me honestly,” Yakov said. “Vitya, what’s the matter with you? After all this time, this is how you repay me?”

“No,” Victor said, his face blank. “That’s what the money’s for.”

“Do you ever think?” Yakov demanded. “I had a reputation. This was my livelihood. Who would take me on as a coach after this?”

Surely, Victor thought, surely nobody would think this was Yakov’s fault. Yakov had raised a dozen greats; Victor had been one of them. And for all that time…

“Don’t say that.” Victor wrung his hands. “Nobody is going to…”

He trailed off. Yakov knew better than him anyway.

It was difficult to meet Yakov’s eye. Victor wiped at his face with a handkerchief and stood there, a little helplessly, while Yakov seemed to be lost in thought.

“After this, I don’t care what you do,” Yakov said, all of a sudden. “You should settle down. You should have gotten married years ago. It might have helped.” All of this was news to Victor. “Vitya, you know … if you won’t tell me now what happened out there, then I want to know one day. Or else I’ll always wonder.”

 

 

 

After the incident, Yuuri didn’t seem to know what to do with him.

“Do you think the way I cry is…” Victor began, then trailed off. His tears looked weirdly gelatinous on tape in a way he had never noticed before. Not that he was in the habit of crying on public television. “Do you think it’s weird.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

But Yuuri sounded so off-kilter. What didn’t he want to talk about? Victor’s crying? The video? As if there were only one video. Never before had so many people seen Victor Nikiforov doing whatever it was he’d been doing. Did Yuuri only want to talk about his shiny new fiancé? The wedding they would have? God have mercy, Victor thought.

“How’s Jules?” he said. That was a diplomatic thing to say, he thought. He was very proud of himself.

“Oh,” said Yuuri. “Fine. He’s — fine.”

Victor didn’t care. “That’s great.”

“I wanted to ask you about something,” said Yuuri, padding back into the living room in his bare feet. With a flood of embarrassment Victor realised he hadn’t taken his shoes off at the door and that Yuuri had probably walked off into another room to try and console himself in face of this fact.

Very slowly and subtly, Victor tried to slip off his shoes. One at a time. Yuuri was saying something. It was difficult to concentrate on two things at once. Actually it was impossible.

“How busy are you going to be next summer?”

“I don’t know.” Victor stared at the floor, feeling flat. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”

“It’s just that, well, you know…” Victor didn’t know. “Wedding planning. I don’t really have anyone to help me.”

This seemed like an incredibly strange thing to say. Obviously it was the wedding planner who was supposed to help Yuuri with his wedding, but what was the point in telling Yuuri that?

Victor felt like crying. He wanted to tell Yuuri that he felt like crying because that should have been important to Yuuri, because Yuuri was his friend, but everything Victor said Yuuri did not seem to hear, as though Yuuri had placed himself in a neat little box, with invisible walls and perfect soundproofing, inoculating him against Victor’s dramatics.

“So what,” said Victor petulantly.

“So stay here and help me, please,” Yuuri said gently. Victor had a horrible feeling that Yuuri knew he was going to say yes, that he knew Victor had absolutely nothing better to do than sit around and look at swatches and menus and flower arrangements. And probably Yuuri thought it would be best this way. To have Victor sit politely in Yuuri’s apartment all day where Yuuri could keep an eye on him and keep him away from the press, rehabilitate him into being socially tolerable.

Victor didn’t say anything. He got up and began to pace. Yuuri’s apartment: spare, undecorated, neat, light streaming in through the balcony window. A lot of uncolorful furniture. But the floors were beautiful hardwood and it was hard to find a place in the city where the drone of traffic could not be heard.

Yuuri went to sit on the sofa with his hands folded in his lap, boyish and calm. He watched Victor quietly, waiting on his answer, which of course would be ‘yes.’

“You know, with your hair, you sort of remind me of siu bao,” said Yuuri.

“Thank you,” said Victor placidly.

 

 

 

In the evening Victor had nothing to do and so he called Chris, because there was no one else he could reasonably call about the situation.

“Do you mean to tell me that the only thing you’re concerned with is Yuuri’s engagement?” Chris asked.

“Why,” Victor said, sitting on the edge of his bed, “did something else happen?”

A moment passed in silence. It was dark and blue in Victor’s bedroom. He had turned off the lights just to have this conversation.

“…How did you not see this coming?” Chris asked. “Yuuri’s been dating him for over a year now.”

“A year?” Victor said. “Who cares? I’ve known him since—” he had forgotten, “anyway, Yuuri’s always ‘dating’ someone. How does he get himself into these things. He doesn’t really care about them.”

“No, Victor, you don’t really care about them.”

“He doesn’t pay attention.”

“Victor, _you don’t pay attention_.”

“Exactly,” Victor said, feeling dreamy. Over the line he could hear Chris take in a deep breath. “Do you want to get coffee tomorrow morning?”

“You know what?” Chris said coolly. “I don’t really want to see you right now.”

Victor went quiet. “Okay,” he said. “Bye then.” But he wasn’t sure if Chris had heard him because at some point the line had gone dead without his noticing. He bit his lip. Nobody wanted to talk to him anymore. Nobody wanted him around except Yuuri. His eyes stung. Then his bedroom lit up with a blue light from his phone. Chris had sent him a text: _He never talks to you about them because you ignore him when he does._

Victor looked at it for only a second before he deleted the message altogether. He pretended that Chris wasn’t angry with him and went to go see if there was anything interesting on TV.


End file.
